As an electric direction control valve for changing a flow path of a refrigerant of a freezer or a refrigerator, a direct acting electric switching valve is known as disclosed in JP-A, H11-13925; JP-A, 2001-156493; JP-A, 2001-156494; and JP-A, 2002-122366. This direct acting electric switching valve includes a plurality of valve ports opened on a flat bottom wall of a valve chamber; a valve body disposed rotatably in the valve chamber, slidably contacting the bottom wall of the valve chamber with an edge thereof and switching connections between the valve ports corresponding to rotational positions thereof; and a stepping motor for directly rotating the valve body.
In the direct acting electric switching valve, a pitch circle radius of the valve ports is so small as to reduce a driving torque of the valve body. Accordingly, a small radius of the valve body is preferable. However, owing to an arrangement of pipe fittings connected to the valve ports limits the pitch circle radius of the valve ports. For overcoming this limitation, it is conceivable that positions of the valve ports are biased toward the rotational center of the valve body against centers of the pipe fittings so as to reduce the pitch circle radius of the valve ports corresponding to an amount of the bias.
However, the conventional electric switching valve has such a structure that the valve ports are formed on one side of a bottom part of the valve chamber, and the pipe fittings are connected to the other side of the bottom part. Therefore, the possible mount of the biasing is limited, and the amount of the biasing cannot be adjusted to a proper value or a required value with high design flexibility.